‘Planned Parenthood is proud to provide abortion’: Cecile Richards

February 4, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – It's an American tradition to take pride in your work. But some are questioning the propriety of Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, who says the group is “proud to provide abortion” to American women.

“Planned Parenthood is proud to provide abortion services for women who make the deeply personal decision to end a pregnancy,” Richards said on Monday. “We are proud to fight for a woman’s right to make that decision without interference from politicians, and we are proud to provide birth control that prevents that need for abortion in the first place.”

“Cutting through the propaganda, what Ms. Richards actually says here is that she and her organization are proud to take part in the murder of millions of innocent human beings, and in pushing dangerous drugs with fatal side effects on women,” Adam Cassandra, communications manager at Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews.com.

“Of course Planned Parenthood is 'proud' to commit hundreds of thousands of abortions every year,” Rita Diller, national director of American Life League's Stop Planned Parenthood project, told LSN. “The blood of innocent babies is the lifeblood of the Planned Parenthood conglomerate. Planned Parenthood is now committing one out of every three abortions in the United States.”

“Planned Parenthood is not about reducing abortions,” she said, ”it's about grabbing an ever larger share of the U.S. abortion market.”

Yet abortion accounts for 93.8 percent of all Planned Parenthood's pregnancy services, according to its latest annual report. By its own accounting, at least 30 percent of all its “services” could induce an abortion. Meanwhile, the organization's prenatal services dropped by nearly one-third (32 percent) and cancer screenings decreased by 14 percent in 2012.

Richards' hardline affirmation of abortion itself represents a new rhetorical gambit. Feminists have called on politicians who favor abortion to end the Clinton-era slogan that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”